The increasing concern for safety has resulted in a move towards providing safer materials for public and household use. One particular area of need is that of providing flame retardant products which will be used by a consumer. As a result, many products are now required to meet certain flame retardant criteria both by local and federal governments as well as by the manufacturers of such products. One particular set of conditions used as a standard for flame retardancy is set forth in Underwriters' Laboratories, Inc. Bulletin 94 which proscribes certain conditions by which materials are rated for self-extinguishing characteristics.
It is known that various flame retardant additives can be employed to render products self-extinguishing or flame retardant. Such flame retardant additives are typically employed in amounts of about 5-20 weight percent in order to be effective for their intended purpose. It is also known that the use of these flame retardants in such amounts can have a degrading effect upon the base product to be rendered flame retardant, resulting in the deterioration of valuable physical properties of the base product. This is particularly so when known flame retardant additives are employed with polycarbonate resins since many of these additives have a degrading effect upon the polymer.